Matt Mullenweg, of Automattic, announced at WordCamp Argentina that Automattic will soon launch a service for premium WordPress themes. The idea? To provide a repository of ‘premium’ WordPress themes for sale. Designers make 50% of the revenue from themes that sell - - Automattic pockets the other 50%.

It will be interesting to see if this kills the free WordPress theme offerings. From a designers standpoint - why continue offering up free themes when you can submit them to this WordPress Themes Marketplace and make a buck, or two.

And what will the going price be for these premium themes? Is it a standard price - for instance will it be a blanket price for all themes? If not, will Automattic valuate each theme? Based on what criteria? Or will the designer be allowed to set the price? Maybe it will be an auction-type setup where users can bid on the themes that are only sold once?

Do you run a WordPress MU site? Are you thinking of running a WordPress MU site? Do you know anyone who runs a WordPress MU site?

This post is about WordPress MU - could ya tell?

If you answered yes to any, or all, of the above questions - then run.. don’t walk - to download Farms Really Big Theme Pack

Just like the title of the theme pack suggests… it’s REALLY BIG!

In Farms own words…”Here’s my latest pack.. and it’s a whopper. It contains all the themes from the last pack, updated with Nevin’s fixes and a stack more besides. All in all there are 67 themes, all Widget compatible, all tested and in use of popular WPMU sites…”

Get ‘em while they’re hot (and they ARE hot!)

It’s true! However, unlike the service you’re using to blog on WordPress.com - customizing the theme is not free. At the time of this post, the current cost is $15.00 per year to obtain access to the Custom CSS feature on your WordPress.Com account.

WARNING: The WordPress.Com Custom CSS feature is not for the faint-at-heart. It does require knowledge of CSS in order to accomplish the task (or hire someone to accomplish it for you).

In your WordPress.Com administration panel, click the Upgrades tab in the top menu to access the place you need to be in order to purchase the option. Once done, you are granted access to the CSS editor and are able to edit the CSS to style your template the way you’d like.